MAY 24TH, 1865: The blockade-runner Denbigh, once described by Admiral farragut as "too quick for us", was found aground at daylight at Bird Key Spit, near Galveston. She had attempted to run into the Texas port once again under cover of darkness.
She was destroyed during the day by gunfire from the USS Cornubia and Princess Royal, and later boarding parties from the USS Kennebec and Seminole set her aflame.
Prior to the capture of Mobile Bay, the Denbigh had plagued Farragut by running regularly from Mobile to Havana. He narrowly missed capturing it on 7 June 1864, and Farragut expressed his feelings in a letter to Rear Admiral Theodorus Bailey: "We nearly had the Denbigh; she has not moved from the fort [Morgan] yet, so she must have been hit by some of the shots fired at her, but he is a bold rascal, and well he may be, for if I get him he will see the rest of his days of the war in the Tortugas," The Tortugas was a prison.
What a Spoilsport. --Old B-Runner
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